Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 17:7
Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow, and all my members [are] as a shadow.
7. The sorrowful condition to which Job was reduced by his afflictions.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Mine eye is dim by reason of sorrow – Schultens supposes that this refers to his external appearance in general, as being worn down, exhausted, defaced by his many troubles; but it seems rather to mean that his eyes failed on account of weeping.
And all my members are as a shadow – I am a mere skeleton, I am exhausted and emaciated by my sufferings. It is common to speak of persons who are emaciated by sickness or famine as mere shadows. Thus, Livy (L. 21:40) says, Effigies, imo, umbrce hominum; fame, frigore, illuvie, squalore enecti, contusi, debilitati inter saxa rupesque. So Aeschylus calls Oedipus – Oidipou skian – the shadow of Oedipus.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 7. Mine eye also is dim] Continual weeping impairs the sight; and indeed any affliction that debilitates the frame generally weakens the sight in the same proportion.
All my members are as a shadow.] Nothing is left but skin and bone. I am but the shadow of my former self.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
By reason of sorrow; through excessive weeping and decay of spirits, which cause a dimness in the sight.
All my members are as a shadow; my body is so consumed, and my colour so wan and ghastly, that I look more like a ghost, or a shadow, than like a man.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
7. (Psa 6:7;Psa 31:9; Deu 34:7).
membersliterally,”figures”; all the individual members being peculiar formsof the body; opposed to “shadow,” which looks like a figurewithout solidity.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow,…. Through excessive weeping, and the abundance of tears he shed, so that he had almost lost his eyesight, or however it was greatly weakened and impaired by that means, which is often the case, see Ps 6:7;
and all my members [are] as a shadow; his flesh was consumed off his bones, there were nothing left scarcely but skin and bone; he was a mere anatomy, and as thin as a lath, as we commonly say of a man that is quite worn away, as it were; is a walking shadow, has scarce any substance in him, but is the mere shadow of a man; the Targum interprets it of his form, splendour, and countenance, which were like a shadow; some interpret it “my thoughts” t, and understand it of the formations of his mind, and not of his body, which were shadows, empty, fleeting, and having no consistence in them through that sorrow that possessed him.
t “cogitationes meae”, Pagninus, Bolducius, Codurcus, so Ben Gersom.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
7. Eye also is dim Dimness of the eye is a figure frequently employed in Scripture to indicate the effects of grief, or of advanced age. As a shadow. See note Job 8:9.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“Handfuls of Purpose”
For All Gleaners
“Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow, and all my members are as a shadow.” Job 17:7
The children of God need not hide the extremities to which they are put. Whilst in one sense they are called upon to make the best of their circumstances, in another they are expected to realise all the discipline through which God is causing them to pass. In any book invented for the purpose of deceiving the world, expressions of this kind would not have been found, for they are enough to turn away the reader from faith in the God who could permit such heavy distresses to fall upon his chosen children. In the Bible, however, the utmost frankness is used in describing the reality of life. Christ said, If any man will come after me, let him take up his cross. Christianity means crucifixion. Looking upon the sufferer in the text, who would say, Let me also be as Job is: let me believe in God; let me follow him in all the travail and sorrow of his life; for surely the God who permits such chastisement is merciful and tender in spirit? No man could make any such speech. Looked at, as he sits in sorrow and in dust and ashes, uncrowned, desolated, and abhorred, Job is rather calculated to turn men away from God, than to allure them to him. Christians have suffered more than any other men have ever endured. The higher the life the more susceptible is feeling: the nearer we are to God the more wicked does every sin appear to be. It is not to be supposed that when a man lives and moves and has his being in God that he is exempt from loss, or pain, or want: but the case is not confined within the limits of such experience; the error which we are always tempted to commit is the error of supposing that we see everything, and grasp the whole case of life in all the variety of its detail. We forget such comforting words as “What thou knowest not now, thou shall know hereafter;” “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid;” “Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.” that is, trials or tests of character. When the eye is dim by reason of sorrow, the eye of the soul is often made brighter and keener, that it may look further into all the mystery of love. The real slate of the life does not depend upon the tearless eye of the body; when the eye of the body is brightest the eye of the soul may be dimmest It is in the darkness that we see the stars. The eye of the body is meant to be extinguished, and all our members are intended to be but as a shadow; no uncommon thing has happened to us when we are in tears, or when we are beclouded by great apprehensions, or crushed under heavy burdens; all that belongs to the present state of life and the present system of nature, as we now stand related to them in our character as transgressors. When my heart and my flesh do fail, then the Lord will take me up. It is in our extremity that God can best show the riches of his grace
Many men would never have known Christ in all his dignity and tenderness, but for the sufferings they have undergone; they have been made acquainted with him in the companionship of affliction. We see more of Jesus Christ in Gethsemane than in any other place in all his history. One day we may have reason to exclaim, “It is good for me that I was afflicted.” There are not wanting children of God who would not on any account surrender the trials they have undergone, because of the rich issues of wisdom and grace which they have realised in their hearts.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Job 17:7 Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow, and all my members [are] as a shadow.
Ver. 7. Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow ] Not only is my good name blasted, but my body also is wasted; the nerves of mine eyes are contracted, the visual faculty decayed, Psa 6:7 . “Mine eye is consumed because of grief; yea, my soul and my belly,” Psa 31:9 . Not the visual only, but the vital powers are wasted; see Job 16:16 yea, the intellectual part as well as the sensitive, understood by the formations in the next clause, that is, the cogitations, say they, according to Gen 6:5 . But I rather take it according to our translation, for the members of the body.
And all my members are as a shadow
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
members = limbs.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Mine eye: Job 16:16, Psa 6:7, Psa 31:9, Psa 31:10, Lam 5:17
members: or, thoughts, Job 17:11
shadow: Psa 109:23, Ecc 6:12
Reciprocal: Psa 88:9 – Mine
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 17:7. Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow Through excessive weeping and decay of spirits, which cause a dimness of the sight. And all my members are as a shadow My body is so reduced, and I am grown so poor and thin, and my colour so wan and ghastly, that I look more like a ghost or a shadow than a man.